Le Mémorial de Verdun, créé par les anciens combattants sous l’égide de Maurice Genevoix, est au cœur du Champ de bataille de Verdun. Entièrement rénové en 2016, ce musée propose une immersion dans la bataille. Grâce à une collection unique et des dispositifs audiovisuels exceptionnels, ce lieu historique permet aux visiteurs d’approcher l’expérience vécue par les soldats, français comme allemands, sur le Champ de bataille de Verdun. Le Mémorial de Verdun est le musée le plus moderne dédié à la Grande Guerre, fréquenté par plus de 140 000 visiteurs chaque année.

(Permanently closed to the public on 1 July 2018, before moving to the restored Ledoux
buildings and an adjacent building, in Place Denfert-Rochereau, 14th arrondissement of Paris.)

After being housed for 24 years above Paris-Montparnasse railway station, the museum re-opened in new surroundings on the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Paris. Its new home was a heritage site. The new setting, more accessible and more visible, is steeped in the history of the period. Jean Moulin lived nearby.

During the Liberation of Paris, Colonel Rol-Tanguy, FFI commander for the Paris region, set up his command post in its basement, before General Leclerc crossed the square on entering Paris on 25 August 1944.

The website chantiermuseeliberation.paris.fr takes you behind the scenes of the future museum, to see its design, collections and the progress of the works.

 - Extract from the press pack -

Initially a private collection, this project grew to such an extent that it turned into a veritable museum overseen by the “Mémoire des combattants en Gascogne” (Memory of the Gascony Fighters) association.

From the beginning, the founders placed their museum space at the crossroads of remembrance and the memory of contemporary conflicts.

The choice was thus made to offer visitors a historical journey through the two World Wars.

The museum chronologically presents the evolution of soldiers’ arms and uniforms from the Great War to the Résistance.

This undertaking is unique in the Gers department and presents widely diverse collections for the pleasure and interest of all:

front pages of newspapers, photos, posters, letters, brassards, containers, arms, uniforms, etc.

Visits and admission price: The museum is open year-round to all, free of charge, by appointment.

Musée des anciens combattants pour la liberté

Museum of the veterans of the fight for freedom:

Malherbe - 32500 Brugnens - Tel.: +33 (0)5 62 06 14 51

Association “Mémoire des combattants en Gascogne”

“Memory of the Gascony Fighters” Association:

Tel.: +33 (0)5 62 06 62 06

e-mail: elian.dasilva@wanadoo.fr

e-mail: xavier.da-silva@orange.fr

Office National des Anciens Combattants du Gers

Gers National Office of Veterans:

29, chemin de Baron – 32000 Auch – Tel.: +33 (0)5 62 05 01 32 – Fax: +33 (0)5 62 05 51 05

e-mail: dir.sd32@onacvg.fr

Founded in 1954 by Louis Villanova, Marcel Daguzan and Louis Leroy, the Auch Museum of Resistance and Deportation, in Gers, was opened on 5 October 1975 by Andre Bord, the then Veterans Minister. The exhibits feature objects, documents and other items from the period owned by resistance veterans.

This remembrance space preserves these important relics for generations to come and keeps the memory of the Resistance operations in Gers alive.

One of the objectives of the museum association founded in 1994 is to expand the collections over time. The exhibition rooms lead visitors through the history of the Resistance from its first steps to the region's liberation. One room is also dedicated to the Deportation, displaying objects, documents, illustrations and a memorial to the deportees from Gers.

Auch Resistance and Deportation Museum

rue Pagodoutés

32000 Auch

Tel: +33 (0)5 62 05 74 79

                 +33 (0)5 62 61 21 85

Free admission

Enquire for opening days and times.

Gers Resistance and Deportation Museum Association : Auch Town Hall

Departmental office for the national bureau of war veterans and victims of war

29, chemin de Baron - 32000 Auch

Tel: +33 (0)5 62 05 01 32 - Fax: +33 (0)5 62 05 51 05

Email: dir.sd32@onacvg.fr

This fine property, built in the typical Bigorre style, is located in the heart of Tarbes’ old town, near the cathedral, and contains the personal belongings of Foch and his family.

Since the end of the First World War, a plaque has reminded passers-by that the Supreme Allied Commander was born here. 

A listed building since 1938, the house was made into a museum in 1951.

On 1 March 2008, ownership of the property was transferred from the French State to the City of Tarbes.

A typical 18th-century Bigorre house, it is of particular architectural interest, with its balustered exterior gallery with pelmets and marble-framed windows. Inside is a fine staircase in carved wood, imitating 17th-century ironwork.

This intimate setting was where Ferdinand Foch spent the first 12 years of his life. Today, the family home houses the personal belongings and mementos of Foch the officer. Portraits depict the military man who was made a Marshal of France, a British Field Marshal and a Marshal of Poland.

The collection consists of personal belongings of Foch and his family, which chart both his personal journey and his public life as a Marshal of France. One room is devoted to the gratitude of the Allied countries.

A graduate of the École Polytechnique, a trained artilleryman and a teacher of tactics of warfare, Foch is remembered as one of the great figures of the First World War, who led the Allies to victory. Marshal Foch died on 20 March 1929 in Paris, leaving behind the memory of international gratitude.

Maison Natale du Maréchal Foch
2, rue de la Victoire - 65000 Tarbes
Tel.: +33 (0)5 62 93 19 02
Email: musee@mairie-tarbes.fr

Tarbes City Council

Located in a magnificent green setting in the heart of the city, the Massey Museum was born out of the dreams and desires of a man from Tarbes, Placide Massey. Placide Massey was the manager of the Le Trianon tree nursery and the vegetable garden of the Queen at Versailles. On his retirement he decided to build a villa on land purchased in Tarbes, where he had already created a park planted with rare species. On his death in1853, he bequeathed some of his properties to the city of Tarbes: a remarkable garden and an unfinished project for a museum, an oriental style building, dominated by an observation tower looking on to the Pyrenees, the work of the architect Jean- Jacques Latour. The town has since fulfilled the gardener's dream: the rare species garden has now been given the label of "remarkable garden" and is open for everyone to enjoy and the museum has been given the label "Museum of France".

The Massey Museum is closed to the public as the building and its collections are currently undergoing a large-scale phase of reconstruction and renovation.
In 2005 the works were entrusted to the Parisian architectural firm Dubois et Associés, who have outstanding references testifying to their sound experience in redeveloping museums: the Museum of Fine Arts in Caen, Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon and the Toulouse Lautrec Museum in Albi. In 2009 the Massey Museum's collections were transferred to modern and practical stores installed on the site of the former weapons store, the 103. This completely renovated former tobacco factory is now a "centre for conservation and heritage studies" and is also home to the city's archives. Now emptied of all its objects, the Museum can at last undergo a face lift. The work that started in June 2009 will be finished at the end of 2011. The façade already offers a glimpse of the quality of the restoration work in anticipation of the interior renovations. The public will be able to visit a modern building designed to respond to the requirements for conservation of the public collections, as a record of society and respond to the expectations of as wide an audience as possible. Everyone, whether or not they are an expert, should be able to experience a moment of pleasure, conviviality or culture in this magnificent setting.
The tour covers the first two floors where the museum's two largest collections are to be displayed: the historical collection of the Hussars and the fine arts collection. The ground floor and some of the first floor will be devoted to the history of the hussars. The two large rooms on the first floor have been reserved for displaying the fine arts collections. 1 - The international Hussars collection: The Hussars collection was built up from 1955 onwards by Marcel Boulin, who was then the museum curator. This collection, which is now of international importance, links the breeding of Anglo-Arab horses with the presence of the regiments of Hussars in garrisons in Tarbes. The public displays in the new museum will present the chronological history of the Hussars from 1545 to 1945.
The major stages in the museum tour will put the emphasis on the tactical originality which gave birth to the "hussar phenomenon", to its expansion across the world from the 16th to the 20th centuries and to the continuity of its Hungarian origins in the identity and the role of Tarbes as a place where this is preserved for France. Two hundred full-sized models and busts, six hundred weapons and a hundred paintings by artists such as Horace Vernet, Ernest Meissonnier and Edouard Detaille will tell the eventful history of the hussars from thirty different countries. Epic events as well as more personal ones will be recalled through accurate text, original exhibits, specially selected illustrations and the use of new multimedia technology.
2 - The fine arts collection Achille Jubinal, a lover of art and Member of Parliament for the Hautes-Pyrénées département, was the founder in the 19th century of the Massey Museum's fine arts collection. He formed his collection of major works from the Italian school of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Dutch and Flemish schools of the 16th and 17th centuries and the French schools of the 18th and 19th centuries through an intermediary network of friends and political connections. His initiative led to further donations, such as those from the Fould family and the Academic Society of the Hautes-Pyrénées. Other important works granted by the State came to further enrich the collections. In the new rooms on the first floor the Massey Museum will display a selection of the most distinctive works. The setting up of temporary exhibitions will provide a greater insight into the works held in the stores. The public will thus be invited to discover and enjoy the masterpieces displayed on a themed tour, where mythology and the religious arts have an important place.
Massey Museum Mairie de Tarbes Massey Museum- BP 1329 65013 TARBES cedex 09 Tel.: + 33 (0)5.62.44.36.90 E-mail: musee@mairie-tarbes.fr

The Espace Aimé Césaire, a new exhibition space open to the public (click here for information)

The Musée de la Résistance Nationale (MRN) is a collective whose purpose is to cater for one essential need: to pass on the history and memory of the Resistance.

The museum space and learning area

This building, with 1 000 m2 of exhibition space on three floors and a 120-seat auditorium, houses the new museum and learning areas, as well as the temporary exhibitions of the new MRN.
The building’s ideal location in the centre of Champigny-sur-Marne makes the MRN more accessible by public transport and closer to its audience.
With its rich collection, the new permanent exhibition presents all the aspects and key issues of the history and remembrance of the Resistance. A cultural programme adds to the content on offer to visitors and individuals keen to gain a better understanding of modern-day issues in the light of that history.
The Espace Aimé Césaire also offers a scientific programme, making the latest advances in research more accessible.

Espace Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac: the research and conservation centre 

The continuing expansion of the collection since 1965 (approximately 250 000 items in 1985; nearly one million today) meant that new storage areas had to be provided for in the new museum buildings.
Therefore, the old site, on Avenue Marx-Dormoy, became a conservation and consultation centre for the collections, as well as the head office of the project’s two mother organisations.
Altogether, the MRN’s collection, which since November 2000 has been dependent on an agreement with the National Archives, was constituted by more than 5 000 donations. It offers an exceptional insight into the history of the French Resistance, its remembrance and the historical works it has inspired. Its scale and diversity present the stories of thousands of Resistance members: men and women; French citizens, immigrants and foreigners; famous and anonymous.

The museum is a collection of souvenirs from a life devoted to medicine, literature and rugby.

While he was studying medicine, in 1899, he became passionate about a sport known as barette, which we now know as rugby.

His love for this sport led to him founding the Pyérénes League and to pen, under the moniker ‘La Sélouze’, a number of columns in the La Dépêche du Midi and the Le Midi Olympique regional newspapers.

He commissioned the Monument to Sport in Toulouse in homage to the victims of war.

Le conflit terminé, il rassemble ses notes dans "Avec la 67ème Division de réserve", grand prix de l'Académie Française.

Auteur de cinquante et un ouvrages, cet humaniste s'est consacré à la neuro-psychiatrie. 

Chef de clinique à Toulouse en 1914, il exerce sur le front en tant que responsable d'une ambulance de campagne.

Son action dans le domaine littéraire le conduit à tenir des rubriques dans le Mercure de France, le Figaro etc.

Il se lie d'amitié avec Paul Léautaud, Paul Valéry, François Mauriac, Francis Carcot, Marie de Saint Exupéry, Camille Mauclair notamment. 

When the war was over, he compiled his notes in the four-volume Avec la 67ème Division de réserve, which won the Grand Prix from the Académie Française.

An author of some 51 works, this humanist dedicated his career to neuropsychiatry.

A clinic manager in Toulouse in 1914, he worked on the front as a manager of a field hospital.

His literary experience saw him write columns in the Mercure de France, Le Figaro and other newspapers.

He forged friendships with writer and theatre critic Paul Léautaud, poet and philosopher Paul Valéry, writer François Mauriac, writer and journalist Francis Carcot, Marie de Saint Exupéry and poet and novelist Camille Mauclair. 

The museum has on display a collection of original documents, manuscripts, photographs, watercolours, sculptures and souvenirs of the Great War, testaments to the life of a man committed to many causes.

Paul Voivenel Museum

09400 Capoulet-et-Junac

Tel: +33 (0)5 61 05 12 57 / 67 79

Email: capoulet.junac@wanadoo.fr

Source: MINDEF/SGA/DMPA

The neoclassical building housing the Navy Halls (Hôtel de la Marine) stands behind one of the two monumental colonnades facing Place de la Concorde on either side of Rue Royale. These two colonnades were inspired by the ones that Claude Perrault, an architect, designed for the Louvre Palace's eastern range. The vaulted gallery on the ground floor holds up twelve columns with Corinthian capitals, which frame the central loggia. The pavilions on either corner feature four Corinthian columns supporting pediments decorated by Sebastien Slodtz and Nicolas Coustou, two sculptors. Balustrades connect the two pediments.

This building was designed around the main courtyard (called the Cour d'Estienne d'Orves). A hall across this courtyard leads to the Grand Degré staircase leading up to the halls and galleries on the first floor. The Navy Halls (Hôtel de la Marine) was designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, King Louis XV's chief architect. and built between 1757 and 1774. It was part of much vaster plans to develop the "Fondrière" area (Place de la Concorde today) around a statue of Louis XV. The building was originally used to store royal palace furniture. It was later used as a museum where the public could see the royal quarters' finest (and carefully-kept and restored) furniture, tapestry, light fittings and decorations. That is why the Navy Halls looked more like a museum than what we would imagine when we think of a furniture warehouse today. As an aside, a number of pieces were stolen in 1792. The Navy Ministry moved to this building in 1789 and the Navy's High Command have used it as part it its headquarters since (despite changing scope and name in step with France's evolving political and military history). Part of the French Navy's High Command is headquartered in the Navy Halls. This building has been entrusted to the Ministry of Defence. France's Defence and Culture ministries signed an agreement to restore it, on 17 September 2005.
Navy Halls (Hôtel de la Marine) Place de la Concorde Cultural and Museum Initiative Authority (Bureau des actions culturelles et muséographiques) e-mail: dmpa-sdace-bacm@sga.defense.gouv.fr